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The battle over Libya continues today with numerous reports of strongman Muammar Gaddafi’s forces losing control of city after city, including Benghazi, the Western city of Tobruk and the Eastern city of Misurata. Yesterday, the eccentric dictator gave a lengthy, rambling speech on State television that has become a hallmark of his rule. After Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations Ibrahim Dabbashi defected, the UN Security Council issued a strongly worded condemnation of government violence against protesters. Dabbashi criticized the statement for not being strong enough and claimed that Gaddafi’s speech was a code to his collaborators to begin a genocide against Libyans. In Yemen, tens of thousands of protesters continue to rally around the country, demanding the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. On Monday President Saleh said he would “only leave through the ballot box,” and vowed to remain in power until elections in 2013. This week for the first time several Yemeni Ministers of Parliament joined protesters in the streets. Agence-France Presse reports that government -directed violence against protesters spurred a call to action by the Common Forum, a coalition of parliamentary opposition groups. A Common Forum statement said, “After bloodshed and the fall of victims, and after the government has sent its thugs onto the streets… we insist that there is no dialogue with bullets and batons.” Protests also continue in Bahrain, with Al Jazeera reporting that yesterday’s demonstration may have been the largest since people took to the streets last week. During the demonstration that wove around the Bahrain Mall and ended in Pearl Square, a statement of demands from the protesters was read. The opposition called for the resignation of the current government and the installation of a constitutional monarchy. The nation’s current leader, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, is the latest from a family dynasty that has ruled the country for 200 years. Al-Khalifa is Sunni, and the majority of Bahrain’s parliament is also Sunni, despite the fact that around 70% of Bahrain’s native population is Shia. A more proportional representation is one aim of the protests.

GUEST: Nubar Hovsepian, Armenian from Egypt who teaches political science at Chapman University. Hovsepian recently wrote the piece “The Arab Pro-Democracy Movement: Struggles to Redefine Citizenship” for the new journal Jadaliyya.

Read Nubar Hovsepian’s article here: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/588/the-arab-
pro-democracy-movement_struggles-to-redefine-citizenship